Minimally invasive internal surgery procedures are ever-increasing. Such procedures typically entail the insertion of one or a plurality of tubular members into a patient body and the passage of various devices through the tubular member(s) to access a tissue site of interest.
In certain endoscopic procedures, a tubular member is inserted through a bodily orifice to provide instrumentation access therethrough to an internal tissue site, e.g., through the mouth or anus to access the “lumen” or cavity of a hollow organ. The tubular member generally contains a plurality of individual channels extending along its entire length for providing, inter alia, suction, water, and/or air as well as providing access for optical equipment and medical instruments. Given such access points and associated bodily canals, the tubular members utilized in endoscopic applications are necessarily of flexible construction and may be of significant length. To date, endoscopic procedures have been largely limited to gasdroesophergeal (GERD) and biopsy applications. However, it is believed that new surgical devices and procedures may be developed that facilitate increased endoscopic applications involving, inter alia, the ligating, proximating and suturing of tissue in the stomach and colon.
Common to many proposed endoscopic surgical devices and procedures is the need to manipulate a medical instrument relative to an internal tissue site of interest. As may be appreciated, the completion of medical procedures in endoscopic applications can present a challenging and sometimes tedious task for surgical personnel. For example, suturing procedures may involve difficult manipulation of an external device to cause an internally located needle to pass entirely through tissue at a surgical site to effect suture stitching. An additional problem that may be encountered during these endoscopic medical procedures is that while the endoscope is inserted within the hollow cavity of an organ, these organs are generally in a flaccid or relaxed state. That is, internal tissue, such as esophageal and intestinal tissue, is often flaccid and in direct contact with the insertion end of the endoscopic device. In this regard, a physician may have a limited field of view of a tissue site area of interest as well as little room in which to manipulate medical instruments relative to the tissue site to perform a desired medical procedure. In addition, relaxed tissue does not provide a structural surface against which the endoscope may apply pressure during a procedure.